I don't trust Autopilot myself, I've had too many phantom braking incidents. But GPS spoofing is not a good reason to criticize Autopilot.
This is exactly the reason why I despise PR.
>Any product or service that uses the public GPS broadcast system can be affected by GPS spoofing... this research doesn’t demonstrate any Tesla-specific vulnerabilities
>The effect of GPS spoofing on Tesla cars is minimal and does not pose a safety risk
It would of course be better if Tesla vehicles weren't vulnerable to this type of attack, but the headline and much of the article has potential to be very misleading to someone who doesn't completely understand what is going on here.
EDIT: I stand by the general point of this comment. However I did miss the context of the quotes I included here. See nirvdrum's comment and my reply.
They are likely 'trusting' GPS signal over IMU currently, but that could be changed via software. Or at least alert if the signals disagree.
> The fact that spoofing causes unforeseen results like unintentional acceleration and deceleration, as we’ve shown, clearly demonstrates that GNSS spoofing raises a safety issue that must be addressed
Sure, it's not a big problem now, but it could be a problem when the Tesla self-driving fleet comes online and it drives you to a back alleyway to get mugged and/or killed.
For one, the attacker would have to know in advance that you'll a) be actively navigating at the time, and (b) what your programmed route is (they have to know what to spoof).
Then, they'll need to get their radio gear together, wait for you to come near, enable the spoofing contraption, hope you don't notice that the car just made an error and pulled into a dark alley instead of 42nd Street, and ambush you.
Not gonna happen for a simple mugging. If you're a specific target, then sure, but your days are probably already numbered.
> Yonatan Zur, Regulus Cyber CEO and Co-Founder, [...]: “We designed a product to protect vehicles from GNSS spoofing because we believe it is a real threat. We have ongoing research regarding this threat as we believe it’s an issue that needs solving.
So they're selling the cure to an ailment they insist is a very big problem.
I'm not saying GPS spoofing isn't a problem, just that this is hardly unbiased research.
Brave new world coming…
What happens when that happens? Did you come to a complete stop?
I also wouldn't trust it in any situation where lane lines are ambiguous, incompletely erased, or just unusual. I have about 50% success navigating freeway ramps and interchanges around here, and even when it is successful it drives slowly and erratically, again making other drivers mad. I've basically given up on that feature, and I also don't use it at speeds above 45 MPH.
I'm hopeful that the more powerful "HW3" Tesla neural net computer will allow them to basically redo the whole thing for "fully self driving". If they're just planning on running what they've got now but faster, then they are not going to be successful.
Finally, although I am bullish on the no lidar approach, I am skeptical that their current camera setup is good enough. They really need more coverage and more resolution, and probably more compute than even HW3 provides. But improving the cameras in newer cars would mean giving up on "fully self driving" for existing cars, and that would be disastrous for them given the promises Elon has made and the millions of dollars of "fully self driving" features already sold.
That surprises me.
Has Tesla really promised "fully self driving" for existing cars?
Seems crazy that anyone would pay for that now.
Personally I think it's a ridiculous idea that it could work well enough to be on the road before current cars are EOL, but even if you did think it was possible, then why not wait until it is an actual reality and buy it later?
I mean, it's not like Tesla will refuse to take your money to sell you the option later anyway.